Wartime Cosham

The district during two world wars

Cosham's proximity to Portsmouth dockyard and its position as a transport hub meant that the district was deeply affected by both world wars. During the First World War, many Cosham men worked in the dockyard, which operated at maximum capacity producing and refitting warships. Others enlisted and served overseas. The dockyard's insatiable demand for labour brought full employment to the area but also brought danger, as the work involved heavy machinery, explosives and hazardous materials.

The war memorial in Cosham records the names of local men who fell in the conflict. The losses were felt deeply in a close-knit community where everyone knew their neighbours. After the war, the survivors returned to a changed world, and the interwar years brought new housing, new amenities and a period of relative stability.

The Second World War brought devastation to Cosham. The Blitz of January 1941 saw Portsmouth subjected to some of the most intense bombing of any British city, and Cosham, with its railway junction and main road, was a target. High-explosive and incendiary bombs damaged or destroyed houses, shops and community buildings. Residents sheltered in the tunnels and casemates of the Portsdown Hill forts during air raids, and some families were evacuated to safer areas.

Fort Southwick, on the hill above Cosham, became one of the most important military installations in the country. The fort served as the headquarters of the Allied Naval Commander Expeditionary Force, and it was from here that Admiral Bertram Ramsay directed the naval component of the D-Day landings. The underground plotting rooms, where the movements of thousands of ships were tracked and coordinated, were the nerve centre of Operation Neptune. The signal to launch the naval operations on 6 June 1944 was sent from Fort Southwick.

After the war, bomb-damaged streets in Cosham were rebuilt, with new housing replacing the destroyed Victorian terraces. The postwar rebuilding changed the appearance of parts of the district but preserved the basic street pattern and the sense of community that had sustained Cosham through the conflict.